Skipping Lunch?

With a growing emphasis on wellness in the workplace, companies may want to dial in to the fact many employees are taking shorter lunches, or skipping them entirely.

The average worker in Britain now takes just 34 minutes for a lunch break with more than half of workers (52%) skipping their lunch breaks completely – a significant shift from the traditional one-hour break. This is according to new research from Workthere.

Workthere commissioned a poll of 2,000 full-time workers across Britain on their lunchtime habits to find out how long they actually take for lunch. The results show that office employees eat lunch at their desk on average four days per week and even when they do take a break, they often don’t step out of the office, with over a third of those polled (37%) saying they rarely leave the office at lunch time. Additionally, 12% agreed they felt pressure to work through their lunch hour.

Workthere found that more than a third (36%) of those surveyed said that access to outside space at lunchtime would make them more productive at work, with 32% confirming a quiet area to escape to would make a difference to the time they spend on their lunch break.

According to the website WorkIt Daily, many organizations firmly believe that an hour for lunch is good for both the employee and the business. By taking a lengthy break to eat lunch, even leave the office to go for a walk, go to the gym or do some shopping, it will leave the worker re-energized and raring to go again.

Some people even argue that when you get an hour for lunch, you’re more likely to make healthy food choices because you have more time to devote to it – which can help improve energy levels and increase productivity.

Either way, it’s probably best to give your employees the choice, so that they don’t feel pressured to cram lunch into 30 minutes.

But the two-martini lunch? That’s probably best left for Mad Men reruns.

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